


Fallen Prometheus

by Rahn (Rahndom)



Series: Justice Lords AU [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, Justice League & Justice League Unlimited (Cartoons)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 16:04:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rahndom/pseuds/Rahn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kon and Tim find a lead to the missing Jack Drake. </p><p>What they find is not what either of them expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fallen Prometheus

When Kon had heard of such ‘facilities’ from C… his Lord Father, he had always imagined a rundown building in the outskirts of the city, mold and decay everywhere as those undeserving of human mercy wallowed in their own filth and waste as they mindlessly drooled and eventually died of neglect.

Just like they deserved.

The modern hospital of glass and chrome was the complete opposite, to be quite honest, and the way all interns spent most of their day on the gardens, humming happy songs as they enjoyed the greenery seemed almost…

… humane.

He did understand his Lord Father’s mentality as he stared at them, how they had once been too dangerous to be left to their own devices and now just lived simple, content existences outside of the eye of the public and out of any harm.

It did look like a utopia.

Some of the doctors and nurses had been eyeing them warily; nervous tittering that was quickly getting onto Kon’s nerves as they had paraded around the hallways and demanded access to all intern files.

Maybe, they thought they were being audited, and, thus, would be ‘treated’ themselves for their failures.

As pretty as this place looked, as bright and modern and comfortable.

The sheer panic on the staff members’ eyes chilled something inside Kon that he could barely name himself.

An intern, that Kon recognized from Tim’s files as Dr. Jonathan Crane, meekly walked up to him, eyes wide and empty as he handed him a small, pale blue blossom, his head tilting to the side when Kon hesitated to accept his gift.

“Dr. Crane,” one of the nurses admonished gently. “You know you are not supposed to bother the Lords.”

Crane nodded, his eyes downcast, cheeks flushing.

"I’m sorry Lord Superman," he whispered, slowly walking - limping really - away, his small flower crushed in his trembling fists.

Kon watched him go with troubled eyes, the cold spreading inside of him and freezing his organs.

"Say," he asked the nurse, internally wincing when she turned to him frightfully, doing her best to shower him with her undivided attention. "What does the D stand for?"

The nurse blinked owlishly at him, her lips parting.

"D…" she mumbled, confused.

"Dr. Crane had a D on his collarbone," Kon explained, scowling. "What is that for?"

The nurse blinked once more.

"It’s the ward designation," she explained, tilting her head - much like her lost patient before her. "D for Dangerous, P for Preemptive, H for Hazardous."

"Is that what the Wards’ Names stand for?" he asked, eyes wide.

"We needed to find a way to organize our resources when our patients started arriving," she reasoned, nodding. "It was Lord Batman’s idea."

"Of course," Kon nodded, doing his best not to swallow audibly.

He could understand Dangerous, of course, the villains  _were_  dangerous, he could also understand Hazardous for special cases like Clayface and Dr. Fries. They could be hazardous to one’s health if only by coming to close skin to skin contact.

But…

Preemptive?

He decided to ask Tim about it as soon as they left the-

All color drained from Kon’s face as he heard something he had never heard before.

In all his years out of Cadmus, in all his years as an intrepid teenage superhero.

He had never heard Tim’s heart stutter like it did at that very moment.

“RED!” he cried, flying towards the source of his partner’s distress, rushing over windows, showering glass all around, not caring of the mess he was causing if only to make sure his Tim wasn’t actually in danger.

He found Tim standing in the middle of a sunny reading room, his trembling hands rising lightly to  cover his partially opened mouth, his shoulders tight, his knees so tense they were about to snap in any second.

He immediately went to assist him, ask him what was wrong.

He didn’t even have to utter a word.

“… dad?” Tim whispered, his voice a faint imitation of his usual confident speech. “Is that… you?”

Kon’s eyes widened, following Red Robin’s eye line to a slender, gaunt man sitting on a wheelchair with chocolate colored hair sprinkled generously with silver, staring from a window at the garden outside with pale blue eyes that were just too much of a match with his best friend’s for the young clone to ignore.

“Oh, my god…” he whispered, his own eyes widening.

The man continued to stare at the world outside, completely unaware of the two young men standing in front of him or their complete distress.

Twin burn marks adorned his forehead in a painfully familiar way.

A dark, almost faded tattoo stood out starkly against his pale collarbone.

 **P**.

Kon shook his head, unable to, denying to himself that…

According to their research Mr. Jack Theodore Drake had never even had a record. He was an archeologist, a scholar, a theorist. He was a charming orator, and a usual guest speaker in Gotham U on the subject of comparative anthropology, but he had never even gotten a parking ticket in his life.

He had never, ever, broken the law.

P, for Preemptive.

“Dad, it’s me,” Tim whispered once more, finally unable to hold his own weight on his failing legs as he landed on his knees in front of the man. Frantically shaking hands removing his cowl violently, revealing his wide, frightened eyes. “It’s Tim.”

His hands grasped his father’s.

“Dad.”

Jack Drake tilted his head, wondering, eyes still on the passing clouds.

“Please say something, Dad, please,” Tim continued to plead, tears pooling in his eyes in such a painful way Kon was surprised his partner was refusing to shed them. “Please.”

In an ideal world, Jack Drake would have reacted to the sound of his son’s desperate pleading, his eyes would have filled with disbelieving recognition as his slender hands reached for his child’s cheeks, knowing immediately who was the teen kneeling in front of him.

His voice, ragged with misuse, would have whispered his boy’s name and the two would have embraced like the family they were, enjoying the feel of eachother’s skin.

But that wasn’t what happened.

What really happened, was that Jack Drake tilted his head at the hysterical boy in front of him, his hand pocking at the boy’s black hair that made Tim’s voice catch in his throat, his eyes fill with an emotion Kon wasn’t sure he could ever feel, let alone describe, and his lower lip tremble.

“… Dad.”

But as suddenly as it had come, Mr. Drake’s curiosity had been grasped once more by a passing plane on the outside that had casted a shadow over them for no more than a second.

And by then, his eyes were once more lost on the outside world.

Kon swallowed the hard lump clogging his own throat, ignoring the way his eyes burned and his hands clenched to the point his knuckles seemed to crack and complain under his strength.

He knew he should look away, he should give Tim the privacy he needed to mourn his father.

But he simply couldn’t.

He watched as his best friend – and certainly the love of his life, he was sure now, - collapsed on the man’s unmoving lap, broken, choked sobs ripping from his bitten lips as he pulled his own father’s hands towards his hair, making his unresponsive limbs caress his head in the way that, no doubt, Tim had always imagined his father would have petted him had he ever been there during his childhood.

And Kon understood.

He had dragged Tim to the facility to look for his dad’s grave.

He had thought Tim would have found closure in the knowledge the father he had never known had not left him and his mother to their own devices, but had died without any way of identifying his body.

That night, away from the eyes of the world, hidden from view of humans and metas alike.

Tim Drake cried for his father for the first time.

And Kon El learned what it felt to truly hate.


End file.
